be."

The girl smiled her quiet smile; her face was sad with the memory of
what she was leaving, but full of youthful, eager anticipation of that
which lay ahead.

"So much has happened, and so quickly, I cannot realize it yet, I know,"
she answered. "But that it will be very wonderful, up there above, I do
believe. And I am glad that we are going, only----"

The Very Young Man took her hand, holding it a moment. "Don't, Aura. You
mustn't think of that." He spoke gently, with a tender note in his
voice.

"Don't think of the past, Aura," he went on earnestly. "Think only of
the future--the great cities, the opera, the poetry I am going to teach
you."

The girl laid her hand on his arm. "You are so kind, my friend Jack. You
will have much to teach me, will you not? Is it sure you will want to? I
shall be like a little child up there in your great world."

An answer sprang to the Very Young Man's lips--words the thinking of
which made his heart leap into his throat. But before he could voice
them Loto ran up to him from behind, crying. "I want to walk by you,
Jack; _mamita_ talks of things I know not."

The Very Young Man put his arm across the child's shoulders. "Well,
little boy," he said laughing, "how do you like this adventure?"

"Never have I been in the Great Forests," Loto answered, turning his
big, serious eyes up to his friend's face. "I shall not be afraid--with
my father, and _mamita_, and with you."

"The Great Forests won't seem very big, Loto, after a little while," the
Very Young Man said. "And of course you won't be afraid of anything.
You're going to see many things, Loto--very many strange and wonderful
things for such a little boy."

They reached the entrance to the tunnel in a few moments more, and
stopped before it. As they approached, a number of little figures darted
into its luminous blackness and disappeared. There were none others in
sight now, except far away towards Arite, where perhaps a thousand stood
watching intently.

The tunnel entrance, against the side of a hill, stood nearly breast
high.

"I'm wrong," said the Chemist, as the others came up. "It's not so high
all the way through. We shall have to make ourselves much smaller than
this."

"This is a good time to eat," suggested the Very Young Man. The others
agreed, and without making themselves any smaller--the Big Business Man
objected to that procedure--they sat down before the mouth of the tunnel
and ate a somewhat